Vatican Ambitions to Deny Economic Freedom

A biblical understanding of economics is one of the gifts that God gives to sustain us, believer and non-believer alike. Biblical economic principles are to be treasured since they bring some degree of stability and well being into societies. This current pope, like his predecessors, is flagrantly denying private property rights and basic biblical economic principles because he has accepted the papal principle of “the universal destination of goods.” The Lord’s people need to be made aware of these facts and some of the examples that fall under them.

All of this and more are carefully documented in our current article given below. We ask that you respond in prayer and forward the article to others. If possible, I also request that you post it on your Web page.

Yours in Christ Jesus and for His Gospel,

Richard Bennett

The Vatican’s Policy on Religious, Political, and Economic Activities

By Richard Bennett and Robert J. Nicholson

On June 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI published an encyclical titled, “Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)” subtitled, “On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth.” After a list of Roman Catholic people to whom the document is addressed, it inclusively states, “and [to] all people of good will.” The emphasis on “all people” permeates the encyclical. His audience is not only to be the adherents and professors of Romanism, but also all those who believe and sense that justice, integrity, and love are the ethical foundations of human well being. Leaders and followers of every religious creed, social dogma, economic, and political persuasion are embraced for the purpose of dialogue.

The opening sentence of the Encyclical states, “Charity in truth…is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.” Since sinning against God is without question “the authentic development” of every person’s sin nature inherited from Adam, the opening premise of the encyclical cannot be true if the word “authentic” is used in its normal sense. Part of Benedict’s definition of “authentic development” is found in Sect. 18, “The truth of development consists in its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is not true [authentic]…development.” Further, in Sect. 11, Benedict citing Paul VI states, “authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension.” Thus, the scope of Benedict’s proposal could hardly be larger, for he has not only included “every person and all of humanity,” but also “the whole of the person in every single dimension.” At the outset, the wording of the subtitle, “integral human development in charity and truth,” has an odd ring to it. However, “integral development of all people under one global system” does not ring oddly, as the sentences from Sect. 11 and 18 make clear.

Benedict states, “Pope Paul VI taught that progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: ‘in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation.’[1] Nowhere in the Bible is such an idea found as popes Paul VI and Benedict XVI have taken as truth. Rather, every man is commanded to repent and believe the Gospel, “…but now [God] commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”[2] God’s command is to all men in all places; all men have need of repentance, and have sinful natures and personal sins of which to repent. The Apostles were commissioned to preach this everywhere. Now in Gospel times it is earnestly commanded, because the Lord God Who governs the world will judge it. The Scripture commands each man to repent and believe. But no man can do this without the conviction of the Holy Spirit, Whose job it is to convict a man of his hopeless-sinful state, and of the Lord Jesus Christ’s righteousness, “when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). The Holy Spirit convicts of sin as He makes us realize our lost condition and brings us to sense our need of Christ’s righteousness. Only the Holy Spirit can impart spiritual life to the soul and supernatural light to the mind. Therefore the Lord Himself proclaimed, “truly, truly, I say unto you except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).“Truly, truly,” is an expression used by the Lord to draw attention to the crucial importance of what He said. What He calls being “born again,” He also establishes as a principle of life, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). None of this is found anywhere in the encyclical. While we saw Benedict state, “the whole of the person in every single dimension,” he explicitly leaves out the moral condition of the person before God. Ephesians 2:1 states the moral condition of a person before conversion as, “dead in trespasses and sins,” leaving him needing therefore to repent and believing the Gospel.

Nevertheless, although these two popes have based their agenda on a falsehood, Pope Benedict states, “This [universal vocation purportedly from God] is what gives legitimacy to the [Roman Catholic] Church’s involvement in the whole question of development.”[3]

Benedict expands his argument by stating that the Papacy’s worldview is relevant for today, “To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning.” Benedict has shrewdly played two trump cards to political leaders, particularly those in democratic nations.

First, he states that the Papacy’s vision comes from a transcendent source—a height of authority to which modern secularists, whether politically or financially powerful, cannot attain. This is because modern secularists have never solved the problem of the justification for government. Without civil government, anarchy reigns because of the wickedness of individuals. However, due to the wickedness of individual civil magistrates in a civil government that de facto denies any real authority other than men, such government ends up in totalitarianism.[4] Second, in speaking of “ultimate meaning,” Benedict targets another weakness of his secular opponents: one of the basic issues with which many modern secularists, agnostics, atheists, and religionists struggle is that of meaninglessness, which is an identity issue.

Thus, the Pope states, “In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations.”[5] Quoting former Pope Paul VI, he asserts,

“Underdevelopment…is the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples…This [brotherhood] originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is. Paul VI…placed at the summit, after mentioning faith, ‘unity in the charity of Christ who calls us all to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all.’”[6]

This concept of brotherhood and unity pervades the document. The term “human family” is mentioned twelve times; the expression “community” twenty-three times. It assumes that all the “human family” is considered to be the children of God as communities work together. Thus, again alluding to Pope Paul VI, Benedict maintains that “an authentic humanism” can be established, “Only if we are aware of our calling, as individuals and as a community, to be part of God’s family as his sons and daughters, will we be able to generate a new vision and muster new energy in the service of a truly integral humanism.”[7] In Benedict’s view, these self-evident truths—creature-hood in common, universality of the human family, and interdependent community—are the pre-conditioning facts of a fulfilling human existence. These facts demand that all reasoning and action concerning the life of man must embrace these self-evident truths. If they do not, then it is likewise self-evident that modern life will lack individual moral excellence, ethical political action, and just and sustainable economic values and objectives.

What Benedict, and Paul VI before him, has not demanded is that the Gospel must be proclaimed. Nor can they … because their authority base, being “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture,” is flawed. Nevertheless, without it the brotherhood and unity that these popes offer is a sham; for the unity that they propose must, if necessary, be imposed by force from civil authorities. It is precisely this that Benedict is proposing in his latest encyclical. His idea is not new. Indeed, it is a page out of the playbook of Hildebrand who, during the Dark Ages, understood that in order to rule over the emperor and the kings of the Holy Roman Empire, he needed to establish a transcendent authority for his position. Although he did not live to see his idea fully implemented, it became the basis of the Papacy’s control through its moral power over civil power to perpetrate its murderous Inquisition on the peoples of Europe and the British Isles for six hundred years, ending in the late eighteenth century.

This global ambition of Benedict has long been the Papal goal. Thus, we notice that the July 15, 2009 edition of the Jesuit magazine, America, carried a cover article entitled, “The Papacy for a Global Church.” Among many other things, the well-known Jesuit, Avery Dulles, wrote, “In our electronic age, when information travels with the speed of light, global authority is more important than ever.”[8]

The assumption is that what the Pope presents as the subject and focus of the encyclical is a set of universal values that should direct and inform all religious, political, and economic activity in the modern world.

Pope Benedict’s Conjectures and How They Are to Be Judged

What must be understood is that Benedict’s encyclical, with its elevated and inspiring tone in pursuit of ethical excellence, is heavily laden with all the classical assumptions of the Papacy. Principally, what is being presented in the encyclical is an idealized plan for the world, based on the Vatican’s view of both what the world presently is, and what it could be, if the Pope were the temporal lord-director of all things spiritual, political, and economic. The whole argument of the encyclical hangs upon the veracity of its alleged self-evident axioms. But, are the assumptions true? If the Pope of Rome wants to be a prophetic voice in the modern world, allegedly speaking on Christ’s behalf, then we shall evaluate his assumptions according to the measure given in the Word of God, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”[9] The Lord Jesus Christ was emphatic that Scripture is absolute truth and that it cannot be refuted; He proclaimed, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” In prayer to His Father, He identified God’s Word with truth, “Thy word is truth.”[10] In this light; namely, the Word of truth in Scripture, Benedict’s self-evident “truths” are clearly false. It will be shown that the encyclical serves the Papal’s purpose, as well as others who also are grabbing for world power; it is plainly inimical to the well being of every human life on this planet. Scripture warns the believer of an iniquitous system that will be maintained by fraudulent methods. “All power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”[11] This is what we are seeing before our eyes in this encyclical.

In Section 50 of the encyclical, Benedict gives his part of the message to all nations. He stated, “Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment.” The Lord Jesus Christ’s message to all nations is utterly different. He proclaims, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”[12] Following on this message is the assurance that those who by grace believe on Christ (i.e., the true spiritual family from people across the globe) are the real family of God in faith.“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”[13] As presented in the Gospel, those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ have been declared “sons of God” through the Lord’s perfect life and sacrifice. As the Apostle Paul proclaimed, “ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”[14]

The Pope’s Agenda

While we are rightly concerned with what the present pope is saying, it is also imperative to grasp why he is saying it. Benedict’s encyclical is not in any sense a labor of original thought. Both his analytical style and argumentative form are firmly grounded in the Vatican’s preeminent sense of its own self-importance and presumed lordship over every aspect of human life. As a worldly, religious entity of over 1,600 years standing, Rome has inevitably developed a complex, sophisticated, idealized economic and political theory that reflects its institutional energy of self-preservation and perpetuation. Even as we examine the assumptions underlying what Benedict’s view of truth, love, and justice are in the light of Holy Scripture, we need to see what purpose and position the Vatican believes it occupies in the scheme of human life and development. The Vatican’s beliefs concerning its position and mission must likewise be held to the light of the prophetic testimony of the Word of God. Is the Roman Papacy a divine gift to the human race? Has the Supreme Pontiff been set in the world, in the place of Christ and His Word, to be the arbiter of politics, economics, ethics, and religious practice? If not, then what position exactly does Rome occupy in Holy Scripture? Is the Roman church the bride of Christ, outside of which there is no hope of salvation? One’s eternal interest rests on the answers to these questions.

If the Pope is who and what he claims to be, then when he says, “Charity always manifests God’s love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world,” he is authoritatively proclaiming that there is a path to redemption other than through the perfect and complete substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pope is saying precisely and unmistakably that love as a personal commitment, and activity in general, is a way of salvation. To put it plainer than the Pope, an individual experience of the love of God, felt or expressed, is a ground of gaining favor and acceptance with God. This is one example of dozens of statements in Benedict’s encyclical that flatly contradicts the plain teaching of Scripture on how a person is accepted by God. The Lord’s Word of truth states, “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”[15] Humanity’s greatest problem is that we have offended the Lord God, the All-Holy One. His holiness is the distinguishing factor in all His essential characteristics. This is the reason why we need to be in right standing before the one and only All-Holy God on the terms He prescribes. Our evil thoughts, deeds, and character have made us His enemies. We have a spiritual debt of infinite proportions that we are unable to repay. Due to our innate rebellion toward the holy God, even our good deeds are as filthy rags before Him. The good news, however, is that by His grace we can turn to Him in faith alone for the salvation that He alone gives. By His grace comes the conviction of the Holy Spirit, based on Christ’s death and resurrection for His own. This culminates with our believing on Him alone. Benedict demonstrates exhaustively that his views truly represent the historical essence of Rome’s religious and social teaching. However, that teaching is not the teaching of the Bible. Grasping this point is critical to understanding how the Vatican sees itself.

Acceptance of Rome’s teaching, agreement with its scheme of salvation by works, and association under its moral and ethical lordship is not merely suggested; it is demanded by a proxy submission to the veracity of everything Benedict proposes concerning justice, love, and truth. To accept validity of the teaching is to accord Rome practical primacy. Plainly, however, in the light of Scripture, Rome cannot be the faithful bride of the LORD of Glory. Its history, testimony, and opposition to the truth of the Word of God inform us it is a woman of another type. In fact, Rome is in reality “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,” hotly engaged in lascivious associations with the princes and kingdoms of this world for the sake of its own advantage and promotion. Rome speaks on the world’s political and economic interests because those interests are its own.

Benedict’s objective is to firmly ground his institution’s welfare and future in terms of an “integral human development” that acknowledges his primacy as the sole arbiter of ethics and moral order. The Triple Tiara with its profoundly symbolic exhibition of papal claims of absolute lordship over spiritual, civil, and moral life is concealed from public view to avoid exposure and embarrassment. However, it is quite clear that Benedict is cleverly penning this epistolary encyclical to again assert the Papacy’s autocratic claims. The Pope’s aim in this encyclical is to propound and promote a type of world government. Specifically, he envisions a renewed and rejuvenated “globalized society” within which the Roman church subsists as the principal ethical entity. The term “globalize” is used 53 times in the document and, in the terms of the argument, is meant to reinforce not merely the concept of an inevitable necessary global synthesis but to generate a “just and sustainable economic order.” The term is always subtly informed, qualified, and defined in harmony with the expressed views of his predecessors on the Pontifical Throne. Demonstrating continuity of tradition or teaching is a pervasive literary artifice in this encyclical. It is designed to morally reinforce its central assumptions and position, namely, that what Benedict writes is obviously authoritative. Thus, he quotes many times from Pope Paul VI in his encyclical called, “The Progress of Peoples,” translated in Latin, “Populorum Progressio.” An entire section of Pope Paul VI’s document is entitled, “Toward an Effective World Authority.” There Pope Paul VI proclaimed,

“This international collaboration on a worldwide scale requires institutions that will prepare, coordinate, and direct it until finally there is established an order of justice which is universally recognized….”[16]

It is imperative for us to understand what the Vatican wants to see and, in point, be actively associated; namely, that there be a cohesive array of institutions, or internationalized bureaucratic collective, that function effectively as a world authority capable of forcefully managing all economic, political, and social elements of human life in a “just” way. Once the reader reasons his way past the moralizing platitudes of “Populorum Progressio,” this is obviously what Paul VI was really saying. Benedict is careful to show that not only are his views in complete harmony with his predecessor, it is also his way of getting dominance worldwide, which follows the “traditional” method.

Part of Benedict’s agenda is the development of an increasingly globalized society by the nations seeking for “the common good” of all. Thus, in section 7 concerning “the common good” he states,

“It is the good of “all of us,” made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.”

This concept of “the common good he emphasizes 20 times in the document. Benedict, while he served as “Cardinal Ratzinger,” drafted what is now the official Catechism of the Catholic Church. In this he stated,

“The [Roman Catholic] Church makes a judgment about economic and social matters when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires. She is concerned with the temporal common good of men because they are ordered to the sovereign good, their ultimate end.”[17]

In the Bible, the ultimate end of man is to glorify God through the appreciation and adoration of His Son Jesus Christ to the complete satisfaction of our souls. In the Bible, it is through the commitment to the whole counsel of God that we come to delight more fully in who He is as the One Sovereign God to His glory and our good. There is no such thing as “the sovereign good” that can be conceived as existing externally to God as sovereign. Therefore, His revealed will in His Word is the only standard of good for rational creatures. “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.”[18]

The emphasis on economics is such that the Pope mentions the concept 133 times. This is the same pope, Pope Benedict XVI, and his Vatican system, that teaches that private property is not personal as such, but belongs to all people. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, whom he quotes many times in the encyclical, stated, “Private property, in fact, is under a ‘social mortgage,’ which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods.”[19] The “principle of the universal destination of goods” is clearly observed in what the present pope endorses in the second part of his first encyclical entitled “God is Love.”[20] The Pope wholly sanctions the principle of the universal ownership of all goods embalmed in the writings of popes John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II on whom he relies heavily in this his second encyclical.[21] A Vatican Council II document upholds the same principle of the “universal ownership of all goods” and emphatically teaches, “If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others.”[22] The Vatican philosophy is simply a justification for theft—whether on an individual level or governmental level. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house…nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”[23] (It is this very thing that the United States government is engaged in with its ever-increasing theft through forced taxation to support socialism. The American middle class is disappearing while the rich, political elite steal more from them through higher and higher taxes to support the every-growing poor class.)

In reference to the economic and political turmoil of our time, the Pope uses the term “crisis” 19 times in his encyclical. There is no denying that the world is in crisis, but Benedict’s proposed remedy is just another disease being presenting as a cure. Instead of looking to the Father in heaven and His Word to learn biblical stewardship of their money and property, Catholics, and now nations across the world, are being exhorted to look to Benedict and his encyclical as a sure path for resuscitation of the international economy. biblical principles of divine justice, creaturely property rights, and equivalent value exchange economics needed for stability and wellbeing of nations, are negated and ruined by Benedict’s economic policies.[24]

Real Legal Power to Implement the Pope’s Agenda

At the beginning of section 67, Benedict calls for “a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.” “Real teeth”—i.e., true legal power—is something with which the Vatican is very familiar. Social and religious dominance, upheld and maintained by means of civil law throughout the European nations, is what the Catholic Church enjoyed and thrived on throughout the Dark Ages and Middle Ages. The Holy Roman Empire’s assertion of this evil principle was the underpinning of her power during the six hundred years of the Inquisition and, generally throughout the centuries, the growth of her religious power system. To illustrate the strength of “real teeth,” from the beginning of the Papacy until the present time, it is estimated by credible historians that more than 50 million (50,000,000) men and women had been slaughtered for the fabricated crime of heresy charged against them by Papal Rome.[25] At the present time, the Vatican’s ability to grow in strength remains potent in nations where she has legal concordats with the civil governments. Since early in the 20, century, while under Pius XII, her legal strategy has become even more assertive and autocratic. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church has much influence in the formulation and implementation of national and international laws, particularly in the nations in which she has papal nuncios as ambassadors. At present, she maintains diplomatic relations with 174 countries at embassy level.

Expediency, deceit, and cunning have always been defining elements of the Roman Church’s geo-political pronouncements. The Vatican, desiring to maintain official diplomatic intercourse with all nations, woos Iran, all the while maintaining relations with Israel. She has had uninterrupted relations with Cuba while having great difficulties with China, Korea, and Vietnam. Interestingly, Islamic countries are slow to sign agreements with the Holy See.[26] Through her many Roman Catholic representatives in government, her own direct influence as a civil power, and in particular through her concordats, Papal Rome is now able to substantially influence civil rulers and civil policy in many nations. As she assumes control through civil ambassadors and legal concordats, Rome continues to fulfill prophecy of the woman “sitting upon the scarlet-colored beast.”[27] The woman, i.e., the Papal Church, is seated upon a scarlet-colored beast—the civil power. As far as possible, she controls and directs for her own ends the civil power that carries her. The political civil power is subordinate to the spiritual control of apostate Rome and is the Pope’s necessary instrument used to fulfill his aspirations and objectives.

Finale in Conclusion

Benedict and his encyclical on directing religious political and economic activities worldwide should not be surprising to us. Papal arrogance tallies well with Scripture’s prediction for such claims, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”[28] The words inscribed on the Pope’s official miter are “Vicarius Filii Dei,” Latin for “Vicar of the Son of God.” Since there can be but one Vicar of Christ who is infinite, supreme, omnipotent, and all sufficient, the Papacy is a demonically energized apostate system that will be judged and utterly condemned by the Lord.[29]

Biblical insight apprehends that “the whole world lieth in wickedness”[30] and, “the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand.”[31] The papal program is wicked, willful, and its genius in means and method, satanic.[32] The Sovereign LORD God has allowed Satan to enter into conflict against Him. The people of God know that this is the Lord’s design, as His Word proclaims, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”[33] From the beginning the Lord purposed to glorify Himself “in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end.”[34] He created the world and formed man for this purpose. His all-wise design was not defeated when Adam and mankind fell, for Jesus Christ the LORD was the Lamb, “slain from the foundation of the world.”[35] Almighty God’s will is from eternity, and reigns supreme in time. He orders, directs, and controls all events. He it is, “who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”[36] Satan and his present neo-Babylonian empire cannot resist Him. It is written, “The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble.”[37] We pray that the people will understand this, and that they also would be motivated to seek His grace. Grace is unmerited, divine favor. By mercy alone, He saves hell-deserving sinners, and so all the glory of redeeming power is His alone. Papal Rome’s modern manipulation of civil power, false ecumenism, and unbiblical economic policies are only instruments to the final end of the glorification of God and the establishment of His righteous kingdom. We can be sincerely thankful that Almighty God in His supreme wisdom has set limits to the intrigues of Rome. The Roman Church will be punished for its willful rejection of the Lordship of Christ. The Lord’s people will not be deceived by the powerful delusion that has descended on the world.[38] They “should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”[39] True believers are those who adhere to God only and His written Word. These know that they are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and that God solely is due all glory and praise!

[8] http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=760 Avery Dulles was one of the original signers of the deceptive 1994 document entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT). ECT has done much to devastate evangelism to Catholics with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[24] See also our article on, “Papal Promotion of Collective Ownership and Theft”

[25] This is documented in John Dowling’s The History of Romanism, Book 8, Ch. 1, pp. 542, 543. The main credible historians on the Inquisition, besides Dowling himself are Lea, Vancandard, Maycock, Coulton, and Turberville.

[26] However, since October 11, 2007, when one hundred and thirty-eight Grand Muftis, proclaimed a call for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, things have radically changed.

[38] II Thessalonians 2:8-11, Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. In context, “If it were possible,” means that it is not possible.